Navios takes delivery of the first of 4 box ships on charters

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IN line with China’s Emission Control Area (ECA) regulations, all ships calling at selected ports are required to switch to low-sulphur fuel with a sulphur content equivalent to 0.5 per cent m/m for one hour after berthing to one hour before unberthing.

This rule applies to the ports of: Shanghai, Ningbo, Zhoushan, Tianjin, Qinhuangdao, Tangshan-Caofeidian, Jingtang, Huanghua, Qinghuangdao, Jiaxing, as well as ports in Taizhou-Zhejiang province, reports GAC Hot Port News.

Within the Yangtze River delta the ports that must follow this rule are: Taicang, Changshu, Zhangjiagang, Nantong, Jiangyin, Jingjiang, Changzhou, Yangzhou, Taizhou, Zhenjiang and Nanjing.

In Guangzhou, the affected ports are Xinsha, Huangpu and Nansha.

In addition the ports of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Dongguan and Zhuhai must also comply with the new regulation.

Effective from January 1, 2018, the ECA regulation will also be implemented at Dalian, Panjin, Jinzhou, Bayuquan and Huludao.

From the same date, ECA regulations will be implemented at Tianjin, Qinhuangdao, Huanghua, Caofeidian and Jingtang. At these ports ships must use the low sulphur fuel while berthing.

CHINA State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) shipyards Jiangnan Changxing Shipbuilding (Hudong Zhonghua) and Shanghai Jiangnan Changxing Heavy Industry (SWS) has signed a contract with Paris-based Bureau Veritas (BV) for the classification of nine CMA CGM 22,000-TEU ships.

Under the deal, all nine gas-fuelled ultra-large box ships will be built to BV class rules and under BV newbuilding supervision, reports Rotterdam’s World Maritime News.

“Bureau Veritas is delighted and honoured to be classing these ships,” said BV vice president Claude Maillot.

The classification contract for the world’s largest LNG fuelled containerships was held at Marintec 2017 in Shanghai.

The new ships will have a bunker capacity close to 18,000 cubic metres (cbm). The first ships from the order are scheduled to come into service from the end of 2019.

CMA CGM will become the first shipping company in the world to equip giant containerships with such engines, under a contract estimated to be worth US$1.2 billion.

NAVIOS Maritime Containers, a growth vehicle in the container sector based in the Marshall Islands, has announced that it has taken delivery of 3,270-TEU APL Denver, the first of four 2008-built panamax with period charters.

Following this acquisition, Navios will control 20 vessels of 84,520 TEU and an average age of 9.8 years, reported the American Journal of Transportation.

The remaining three vessels are expected to be delivered by mid-December. Navios Containers agreed to acquire the four 2008 built 4,730-TEU unit for US$96.8 million.

They are all employed on charters with a net daily charter rate of $27,156. The charters expire in 2020 and are expected to generate $70 million in operating profit.

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China ban on scrap plastic a boon for new plastic producers

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CHINA has started buying new plastic to replace plastic scrap it recently rejected, which is good news to the US chemical sector that has a lot of new plastic to sell.

“It’s a good time to be bringing on some new assets,” said Chevron Phillips Chemical CEO Mark Lashier as he opened two polyethylene plants in Old Ocean, Texas.

Mr Phillips said he expects the new plastic market to increase five fold in two years. “If you pull recycled plastic out, that market demand is going to increase,” he told Bloomberg.

China is undoing decades of effort that built a massive scrap recycling industry – the cheapest way to produce plastic products for its growing economy.

The country accounted for 51 per cent of the world’s plastic scrap imports last year, with the biggest contribution coming from the US, according to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, an international trade group.

Now China is changing course, telling the World Trade Organisation in July that it will stop accepting imports of used plastics and paper by January 1 in a bid to clean up industrial pollution.

The China ban could shift about two per cent of global polyethylene plastics supply from recycled to new material, said Morgan Stanley analyst Vincent Andrews.

Thirty per cent of North America’s recyclables were exported to China, said Mr Andrews. China is creating a void in the market that will have a “devastating impact” on recycling worldwide.

The US west coast is the hardest hit, particularly Portland, Oregon. Waste haulers in rural parts of the state recently began steering some plastic to the trash dump because the market is drying up, said Peter Spendelow, a recycling policy analyst for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

Paris class society, French LNG giant join CMA CGM mega ship deal

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CHINA State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) shipyards Jiangnan Changxing Shipbuilding (Hudong Zhonghua) and Shanghai Jiangnan Changxing Heavy Industry (SWS) has signed a contract with Paris-based Bureau Veritas (BV) for the classification of nine CMA CGM 22,000-TEU ships.

Under the deal, all nine gas-fuelled ultra-large box ships will be built to BV class rules and under BV newbuilding supervision, reports Rotterdam’s World Maritime News.

“Bureau Veritas is delighted and honoured to be classing these ships,” said BV vice president Claude Maillot.

The classification contract for the world’s largest LNG fuelled containerships was held at Marintec 2017 in Shanghai.

The new ships will have a bunker capacity close to 18,000 cubic metres (cbm). The first ships from the order are scheduled to come into service from the end of 2019.

CMA CGM will become the first shipping company in the world to equip giant containerships with such engines, under a contract estimated to be worth US$1.2 billion.

Maersk still leads as biggest box carrier with Hamburg Sud buyout

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Maersk still leads as biggest box carrier with Hamburg Sud buyout

DENMARK’s Maersk Line has now retained its lead in world container shipping from a challengers now that it has taken over Germany’s No 2 shipping line Hamburg Sud.

Singapore’s Business Times reports that the combined entity now holds an 18 per cent share of global capacity up from 15 per cent before the EUR3.7 billion (US$4.3 billion) acquisition.

“Our strategy is to move away from being a conglomerate to being a company focused on transportation and logistics,” said Maersk’s chief commercial officer Vincent Clerc.

“With the acquisition of Hamburg Sud, we are really cementing our leadership position in container transportation, and we are building our presence in key markets like Latin America and Oceania, where Hamburg Sud has historically been strong,” he said.

Maersk ranks as the biggest container shipping line worldwide with 646 vessels, while Hamburg Sud is the seventh largest, with 116 ships.

Maersk said it will now move to reflag most of Hamburg Sud’s vessels, including some of the German-flagged ships, to either Denmark or Singapore.

This exercise will likely be completed over the coming months, said Mr Clerc, although the company has yet to decide on the exact number of vessels that will fly each flag.

Maersk has investments in Singapore totalling over US$12 billion, including 46 vessels and rigs under the Singapore flag.

“For a long time, we’ve built very deep relationships in Singapore, we’ve had a lot of activities here – it’s a place that makes sense for us,” said Mr Clerc.

“And as we integrate Hamburg Sud and continue to grow as a company, Singapore will benefit with an increase in numbers for the transshipment moves happening here,” he added. All of Hamburg Sud’s transshipment activities for south beast Asia will remain in Singapore, unchanged.

Already, Maersk’s share of transshipment volumes through Singapore has grown significantly in recent years, even as the shipping line continues to utilise its dedicated berths at Malaysia’s Tanjung Pelepas port. Singapore handled 4.5 million TEU of Maersk boxes in 2016, up 69 per cent from the 2.7 million TEU of 2013.

“Singapore has traditionally been one of the real pivot areas for trade and shipping, and south east Asia is the area in Asia that is seeing the strongest growth right now. Obviously, Singapore is the natural transshipment hub for south east Asia,” said Mr Clerc.

That said, Maersk’s acquisition of Hamburg Sud will only have “a minor impact” on box traffic coming through Singapore since the German firm is a relatively small carrier in the South-east Asia region, said Tan Hua Joo, executive consultant of Alphaliner.

China mulls second attempt at creating a Shanghai free trade zone

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China mulls second attempt at creating a Shanghai free trade zone

CHINA’s cabinet, the State Council, the nation’s cabinet, will soon unveil plans for a second version of a “free-trade port” in Shanghai, reports Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post.

Chen Bo, adviser on the proposal and who researches free trade zones at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, broke the news.

The earlier 2013 Shanghai Free Trade Zone was the big disappointment of President Xi Jinping’s first term, particularly after it was pitched as a model for the “upgraded Chinese economy”.

Beijing failed to deliver on tax cuts or ease restrictions on yuan convertibility. An American Chamber of Commerce survey found few if any benefits. In April, the zone’s first director was jailed for 17 years for taking US$6.5 million in bribes.

President Xi then floated the idea of a second attempt last month as part of the Communist Party’s pledge to “develop new models and new forms of trade”.

The port reportedly will feature eased capital controls, no customs duties and minimum clearance procedures compared with the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (FTZ), which was established to test deregulation.

The second go-round will also be smaller – about 18 square kilometres, or 15 per cent the size of the previous area.

“It’s going to be of a smaller-scale, more specific and freer,” Mr Chen said, adding that he expected the central government to release a final plan early next year.

“The FTZ has performed below expectations and lagged its lofty objectives,” he said. “The free port needs to carry out capital account liberalisation to emulate the freest ports in the world such as Hong Kong and Singapore. This is crucial.”

The free trade port would better live up to the designation, said Cao Heping, who advised the government on the original FTZ proposal and saw the new plan.

The smaller size within the existing FTZ – including the Yangshan seaport and Pudong airport areas – would allow cargo to be stored and transferred without duties, he said.

“The free port will be a smaller, nimbler and better version of the FTZ,” said Mr Cao, director of the department of development economics at Peking University.

“It’ll be like a second attempt at catalysing financial reforms because we haven’t done well enough on the first try.”